Did anyone here manage to get their subaru stuck

Yeah. I made the mistake of driving into a snow drift in a field in my Forester. All 4 wheels were lifted far enough to prevent traction. Fortunately I had a shovel and removing snow from underneath gave me enough traction to back out. Any 4 wheeler would get stuck under these conditions.

Some tires are more forgiving when car belly is (partially) on the snow

And sometimes you could not believe the kind of tire that performs well in the mud. I've had jaw popping mud performance from hakka i3 (in summer, on a monowheel driver). It's semislick (or a summer UHP by the very least) an yet it DIGS!

the finns never cease to amaze me tire-wise

Stuck is a relative term I guess. Two winters back I was driving my Outback across the boonies of northern West Virginia and tried to pull off the paved road into a lay-by, skidded badly and hit a 8" timber post sticking up from the ground at the entrance. That smashed the skirt (turned it from convex to concave and aimed the fog light straight at the ground) on the driver's side, destroyed the tire, and slightly bent the wheel. I guess that the time I spent there trying to recover would count as 'stuck'. On the other hand I've seldom been truly stuck for lack of traction in the decades I've been driving no matter what the vehicle, the worst being on black ice on a long steep hill driving a Miata down the Alaska Highway near Watson Lake, Canada where I thought I was going to have to wait for Spring or apply for citizenship.

Only when the four wheels were lifted off the ground, such as the time I was on a windrow of snow left by the snow plow.

you did 4 wheel alignment afterwards?

Yup, early on when I first bought mine, I was eager to try to get it stuck, so I went out looking for trouble. Got into a muddy road with after a fresh rainfall, and all four wheels were spinning for several minutes. Eventually, I modulated the clutch enough to get unstuck slowly. But boy did that clutch smell of burning for several minutes afterwards. :)

Ever since then, I just stay within standard paths and know that I can get out of problems on the bad days on standard paths that lesser cars will get stuck on.

Yousuf Khan

Crap tires detected. If I remember right your outback is from the era when subaru ditched LSD on the rear axle on all of the lineup save for STi (which uses mechanical diff on the rear axle anyway)

If it's any consolation to you on A4 it takes very little to get that smell. It seems that any time torsen gets a smallest of workouts I get that smell. Can't tell if it was like that when the car was new though. I went through one clutch already when I got the car. Now me wonders if it's gonna be a 2nd clutch or the synchros first.

Well, I sure did... I've driven through now above the bumper any number of times(light fluffy stuff), but on March 3rd the 14"+ snowfall was wet and heavy--took me a while to figure out that the snow wasn't compressing and I was high centering. Some shoveling got me un-highcentered and into a track cleared by a Pisten Bully (Forbush Corner, Michigan). If the Arctic Alpin winter tires are suspended in mid air they don't do much good. GreginIN

2000MY OBW Ltd

Well, actually the tires were Nokian Hakkapelittas at the time, mind you they were all-season not snow.

As for the limited-slip diffs, this was a manual transmission car, so it had the big-boy AWD system, with VC limited slip on both the center and rear diffs, only the front diffs were open. I am glad that I never went with the automatic on this model, those had the crapified AWD system.

Well, I don't know how much longer I'll have this Outback. It's already

12 years old now, and there is corrosion in parts of the frame that are invisible to me, but visible when the car is up on a hoist. Even my dealership has suggested that I should use the rest of this summer to say goodbye to this car and get another one. I'm not sure the next one will be a Subaru again though. Not that I wouldn't want another one, but they just don't depreciate enough on the used market. I'll probably be looking around. I'll still have to get AWD, I can't go back anymore.

Yousuf Khan

there are quite a few Hakkapelitta models in nokian lineup. You'd want to be more specific here.

though my summer hakka i3 are doing great in mud despite the design that is mud shedding unfriendly. go figure

Juke. or cashcow, possibly +2

how does that sound? lesser awd somewhat offset by the active rear diff on juke

me thinks that brings a lot of value to the table.

cashcow is bigger me thinks, but lacks active rear diff for now

maybe if datsub brand gets revived in the states the cashcow will get an active rear diff and datsun stablemate will do without

but automotive guessing is a thankless job

myself I want an awd petrol bmw X1 with turbo 4 or 6 pot. just modest me :-)

Alpins are "performance winter" category tire in tirerack classification meaning that they are designed for "black" soft eurowinter. They stay pliable at low temps on pavement but they are not designed to handle soft snow and ice. Good in texas winter, not so good in any corner of Michigan.

Well they do have the mountain/snowflake rating and these are 1999 "Arctic Alpins" that are no longer available and were NOT a performance winter tire. They did not have maximum deep snow capability, but did have very good deep snow characteristic with superior wet road braking and handling. Perfectly fine for northern Michigan, but completely useless when dangling in mid-air on a high centered vehicle..

GreginIN

Well, it was so long ago, I don't even remember which model they were.

Yousuf Khan

You put winter tires on in Texas?

Yousuf Khan